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Bin Laden trail goes cold, as US extends search effort to Pakistan
( 2001-12-18 09:37 ) (7 )

US intelligence sources put Osama bin Laden in the area of the Tora Bora mountaintop complex as recently as Saturday but the trail for the suspected terror mastermind has gone cold since.

The Pentagon believed bin Laden was among the al Qaeda fighters holding out in the mountains between Jalalabad and the Pakistan border last week, based on radio communications that were intercepted. Monday, officials said the radio chatter had dropped off, which could mean bin Laden is gone.

To confront the possibility that bin Laden or key members of his al Qaeda network had fled east, it has learned US Special Operations troops are on the ground inside neighboring Pakistan.

Some al Qaeda fighters have crossed high mountain passes into Pakistan and have run into the 4,000 Pakistani troops patrolling there. The CIA has placed interrogators at Pakistani detention centers to find clues when the prisoners are brought in, sources said.

For now, it is "anybody's guess" where bin Laden - the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States - is hiding, said Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem at a Pentagon press briefing Monday.

"Searching for fleas on a dog is one way that I would think of it," Stufflebeem said of the search for bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders. "It may not be a good description, but, if you see one and you focus on the one, you don't know how many others are getting away, I think is the sense that I have of it."

Anti-Taliban troops and some British and US special forces are going from cave to cave, as the US military uses infrared technology to track the movements of what is believed to be 1,000 al Qaeda fighters. US soldiers will also revisit some of complexes that were hit by US bombs, in case bin Laden is among the bodies of the dead, said Stufflebeem.

"We get all kinds of reports - that he's in a cave, that he's not in a cave; that he's escaped, that he hasn't escaped, and there's all kinds of speculation," President Bush said today. "But when the dust clears, we'll find out where he is and he'll be brought to justice."

US aircraft continue to bomb the Tora Bora region, but bombing in some areas was suspended in order to allow alliance troops to enter the area.

Big Fish Snared

For more information on bin Laden, US officials are turning to the hundreds of prisoners taken over the weekend by Afghan forces.

"Our forces are interrogating these detainees as they're being held by opposition groups and determining whom of those we would like to interrogate further," Stufflebeem said. "And then we work with the opposition leaders who have detention of these individuals to ask for them to turn them over to us."

Eighteen of them were paraded in front of the international media today, showing the effects of the days of fierce fighting and intense bombing before their capture.

Some were barely able to walk and many were bandaged, and almost all showed no interest in answering the questions shouted by journalists hoping to learn where the al Qaeda fighters came from - and where bin Laden had gone.

American officials are expected to take 50 to 100 of the prisoners for interrogation by US personnel and possible prosecution. Another detention center is being prepared by US Marines at Camp Rhino, which is also near Kandahar, Stufflebeem said.

Sources told reporters one of those now in possession is considered to be a significant catch - an Arab who was among bin Laden's top 30 lieutenants. He is expected to face a military tribunal.

Four prisoners, including John Walker, the American who joined the Taliban, and possibly an Australian man who was with either the Taliban or al Qaeda, have been taken to the USS Peleliu, Stufflebeem said, though he could give no details on why they were taken there or the identity of any of the detainees other than Walker.

‘People Will Be Killed'

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a flight from the Republic of Georgia to Brussels, Belgium, Monday warned against too much optimism springing from the weekend's military successes in Tora Bora.

Though the main al Qaeda forces may have been broken, isolated pockets of resistance in the region still offer a real threat to troops seeking bin Laden and other al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

"It is true that they're running and hiding and not dominating the country of Afghanistan as they had previously. It is also true that the Taliban is no longer a legitimate government of Afghanistan, if it ever was. It, too, is in a state of some disarray and is running and hiding," Rumsfeld said.

"But there are still a lot of Taliban in the country, and it's going to take time and energy and effort, and people will be killed in the process of trying to find them and capture them or have them surrender," he added.

Pashtun fighters say that they believe they know where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is hiding with some 500 die-hard soldiers, and they are preparing to storm the area in the next couple days.

Haji Gullalai, intelligence chief in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said Omar had been traced to a south-central mountain location. He said Omar had retreated to mountains and caves around the village of Baghran in Helmand province, about 100 miles northwest of Kandahar. "Mullah Omar has gone to Baghran," Gullalai told reporters.